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Wednesday, 21 September 2011

It was all so very shiny! - Animania and T'EMPorium's sale

I’m on fire! I’m on fire!! – no, I am joking, its just indigestion.

But bear with me guys because I am sort of on fire with inspiration (*kaching!*) because I just recently attended Animania with my little stall, T’EMPorium!

For a small history of my crafty ventures – you may go here – it’s all very historically accurate and very pompous too.

For the report on my shenanigans (or lack thereof), take a seat, brew a cup and read on, this may take a while.Oh and there are pictures – YEY!

I set up on the Friday before the event because of one particular silly reason; acrylic nails. Yes, my fancy nails would have hampered my set up progress had I decided to set up in the morning ‘cause I’m awful at handling fiddly bits and hat pins when I have long nails... In fact, I stabbed myself several times with clips that Friday evening.Mum also volunteered to help me set up, so I snuck her through Louis (not so sneakily I suppose) and we got cracking.

All in all I think the result was quite nice.

The next morning – as in 6.30 AM IN THE GODFORSAKEN MORNING ON A SATURDAY NO LESS! I gallivanted off to Redfern, I was so friggin exhausted waiting for security to let us through, I had a permanent scowl but managed to say a relatively decent Hi to Alan Chan (epic photographer of note) before staggering to my table, grabbing my two makeup kits and shoes and racing off to the ladies room to gussy up.I think I may have scared all the Maid Café Maid volunteer girls with my arsenal of eyeshadows and impatient grumbling as I tried and failed to glue my feathered fake lashes on.I managed a somewhat decent presentation and hobbled back to my table, blinking like a Victorian parlour lady, hotboxed in an Indian boudoir with a monkey in them idle of summer.Eventually, I trimmed the lashes and kept just the feather extensions, which took about three minutes as opposed to the apocryphal warfare against my eyelids that I had endured in the ladies room.Needless to say, I think I scared my neighbours, the lovely ladies of Void.All they probably heard from me that morning was ‘good morning’ and ‘gargle blah’, ‘fucking eyeball’, and ‘conkers’.They were good sports about it though. *^_^

I want to thank Illamasqua for pretty much making me look considerably more elegant and mysterious than I normally am.

It was an awesome first day!I sold almost everything within the first 3 hours and was relatively surprised that people liked my products.As I looked around I began noticing that my stall looked relatively shabby in comparison to say my neighbours or the layout of epic accessory makers, Curious Empire and Nekochii, who I later got introduced to and found that not only are they excellently talented, they are also excellently friendly people!Dennis, my table helper/volunteer/slave pretty much saved me from eternal numb-ass-ness and was generally awesome to customers throughout the whole day.

Maybe it was the fact that I knew I wasn’t really as professional as some of the vendors, although I did try, putting care guides and business cards (mass printed at the work printer bwahahaha) into the little bags I used to package my products.I also had to resort to my supply of random plastic bags for the hats I sold, so at one point I may have given Kinokuniya and London Duty Free some free publicity.

I met some of the most epic people ever, including re-meeting with old friends like Regine (Jinberry!) and Dexter (hi to Tita Ruth too!).I was incredibly flattered by some guy whose sister bought a necklace from me as he wanted to take my picture, ‘but can we walk over there because there’s this window with great lighting’.I’ve fallen for this trick before, so, like a boss…; I went with him because I was so flattered that anyone would want to take a proper picture of me, with a swanky camera and all.Turns out, he came along with his sister because he didn’t get the whole anime fan subculture and was pleasantly surprised.I hope I did his photos justice cause I can’t really pose for shit.

OH I also met Death, he was adorable and had funny/cheesy jokes about Nokia.It wasn’t Terry Pratchett’s Death but he made do…

I didn’t get to talk to many proper (and I use the word loosely because you cant define it anyway) Lolitas. I felt slightly ashamed at the fact that I could name the prints and brands (or replicas thereof) of some of the dresses, because that’s just really, really lame.

I also got to meet Sharon, who was so incredibly adorable and her boyfriend who was kind enough to take an awesome photo of the two of us together.I wasn’t expecting to really be able to talk much to some people but it was great to meet a Lolita fan who I could talk to about things that were not Lolita related.Sharon is an immensely talented designer and makes some of the most beautiful metalwork and jewellery ever. (Yes you do!!).

I also got to talk to a really sweet girl from a nearby stand (sorry I forgot your name! ;_;) who had the most EPIC MARIO JUMPERSKIRT DRESS OH MY GOD I WANTED IT SO BADLY.

I also had the privilege of being able to chat to Jen from Curious Empire and Amanda and Kit from Nekochii.Jen’s stuff pretty much blew me out of the water and her little table of trinkets and STEAMPUNK stuff pretty much made me feel a little inadequate about my own stuff that I make.But no matter, talking to her was inspiring because she is clearly passionate about her art and talking to them all, even if it made me feel like a bug in terms of the awesomeness of their products, really inspired me.

Day 2 was sloooooooow, I was exhausted and I had thought I had lost my camera the night before.I was a blubbering mess of guilt and blubberiness, sobbing about how I may have hated my pink camera but damnit it was my camera and it had photos of cats in it and all that…

Turns out… I had left it on the table the night before.Stupid me.

I went for the colour route as my black BTSSB dress was pretty uninspiring and went all out using the most epic makeup ever; Geek Chic Cosmetics.

I wore two tone lipstick using a lippie in shiny minty acqua which I had requested GCC to make because I love green lipstick.They asked me what I would name such an awesome lipstick and I offered up two names (among others); Toxic Unicorn and Bulma Briefs.To my great awe and honor, they made two green lippies for both, Toxic Unicorn was a more limey green and Bulma Briefs was well, exactly the colour of her hair in most BDZ episodes (I had hoped that since I helped name them, I would get free samples, but meh, I hauled them in with a massive buy anyway). I paired it with my Fantasy Pink from Givenchy and topped all that silliness off with a giant strawberry on my head.Dennis however, beat me to it with an EPIC Gloomy Bear Cosplay.

Eventually, I decided to go on a pathetic desperate sale because all I could think of was that I had to drag my heavy suitcase back to parra and didn’t want to carry anymore.I think there were about two things left before I called it quits and thus began my AFTERNOON SHOPPING SPREE!!!!

I paid a visit to Andrias over at Poporetto.He and his sister were my table neighbours last year and were still as adorable and awesome as last year, with his sister making the CUTEST TOTORO CAKE POPS WHICH I COULDN’T BUY BECAUSE THEY SOLD OUT WAAAAAAAAH!

But I did get a neat stash of comics, and a few free badges.

I also traded a steampunk decorated notebook with Chung from Void for some adorable bookmarks (I’m using them now!!).I also gave away my last keychains for free, and got a keychain in return from Kit of Nekochii (even though I had already bought one, but two is better than one).My keychains were drawn by the ridiculously talented Tepai Pascual by the way, who needs far more publicity than I can give.But yeah – check her work out because it will blow your breeches off.

I also went insane trying to buy things at Curious Empire, but settled for scents and a necklace made entirely out of win.Aaaand, I got the bestest sleeping mask evar from Amanda.

My stash was pretty damn epic – I was a happy camper.

All in all, I had an excellent weekend, I made a great profit and am filled with warm fuzzy feelings about the fact that people liked my products and bought a lot of them.All those cut fingers, burns from hot glue guns, giant open stab wounds caused by blunt instruments like pliers and eye hook wires and stupid unmanageable silicon whipped cream were all worth it in the end.

Above all, I made some great new friends who, even if after the excitement, might never see or talk to again, it was still worth it because I am always pretty much all lit up with glee like a Christmas tree when I meet new people who laugh at my really bad jokes.

Thank you for everything guys and I hope to keep in touch with you all.And thanks for the epic loot… people give my work cubicle funny looks now because its covered in anime merchandise… so much for serious legal workplace.

I HEART YOU ALL!!

P.S – cosplay was pretty good I admit, there weren’t that many eyesores…